Werewolf?

[dancin'hamster]

Records of an enormous wolf-like animal in north Wales date back to 1790, when a stagecoach travelling between Denbigh and Wrexham was allegedly attacked and overturned by an enormous black beast almost as long as the coach horses. The terrifying animal tore into one of the horses and killed it, while the other horse broke free from its harness and galloped off into the night whining in terror. The attack took place just after dusk, with a full moon on the horizon. The moon that month seemed blood red, probably because of dust in the stratosphere from a recent forest fire in the Hatchmere area. The locals in north Wales and Cheshire thought the moon's rubrical colour was a sign that something evil was at large and the superstitious phrase, 'bad moon on the rise' was whispered in traveller's inns across the region.

In the winter of 1791, a farmer went into his snow-covered field just seven miles east of Gresford, and he saw enormous tracks that looked like those belonging to an overgrown wolf. He followed the tracks with a blacksmith for two miles, and they led to a scene of mutilation which made the villagers in the area quake with fear that night. The tracks led into a farmstead where every single animal had either been literally torn to shreds or mortally wounded. One snow-covered field was just a lake of blood dotted with carcasses of sheep, cattle, and even the farmer's dog. The farmer was found locked up in his house in a terrible state. He wasn't harmed physically, but he was terrified. He had barricaded himself in after witnessing an enormous black animal that resembled a wolf ripping the throat out of his sheepdog. The animal had then gone for the farmer, but he had just managed to run in the farmhouse in time. He had bolted the heavy oaken door and hid under a table in the kitchen armed only with a pitchfork. The farmer said the wolf pounded on the heavy oak door, almost knocking it off its hinges. The weird-looking animal then stood up on its hind legs like a human and looked in through the windows of the farmhouse. Its eyes were blue and seemed intelligent and almost human-like. The beast foamed at the mouth as it peered in, then bolted from the window to commit wholesale carnage on the farm.

Each of the sheep were left as pelts of wool with a head attached, lying flat on the snow like a woollen mat. The animal had even eaten sections of the animal's spines, and no one had ever seen a predator do something like that before.

The church set up patrols in search of what was suspected to be an evil werewolf, and bands of villagers braved the freezing blizzards with lanterns, muskets and pitchforks in search of the ravenous beast, but only its tracks were ever seen.

Seven years later, two men walking across the Bickerton Hills in Cheshire saw something that sent them running for their lives. The full moon had just risen, and as it peeped over the hilltop, the travellers saw the silhouette of an enormous unidentified animal against the lunar disk. The animal lifted its head and let out a bloodcurdling howl which echoed through the Cheshire hills. The two men rushed into an inn and refused to continue their journey until morning.

At dawn on the following day, the mutilated bodies of two vagrants were found in a wood just five miles from the inn. It didn't seem to be murder, because their bodies had been literally slashed to ribbons by something which had claws like knives. One of the victims had tried to cross a stream as he had fled the scene of the slaying and had been pounced upon in the waters. His head was never found, and seemed to have been torn off. The head of the other victim was found stripped of its face and ears in another part of the wood. The jaws of the animal that killed the man must have been powerful because the victim's skull had been cracked and splintered during the gruesome attack.

Someone wrote an anonymous letter and posted it to the local minister. The letter-writer said the beast that had killed the men had been a werewolf which had been on the loose in that area of Cheshire and Wales for over a hundred years. The letter-writer said that the attack had happened during an eclipse of the moon, when the moon passes into the earth's shadow and seems to turn dark red, and he claimed that he had heard the terrible screams of the tramps who were slaughtered by the animal. The writer told the minister to paint crosses on the doors of each dwelling in the village because the werewolf was driven in its bloodlust by the evil spirit of a Welsh warlock who had been burnt to the stake by the ancestors of the villagers in the year 1400.

The attacks by the large black wolf gradually died out, and the people of Cheshire of Wales breathed a sigh of relief.

But two centuries later, attacks by a large unidentified animal were reported again. In February 1992, a Welsh newspaper called the Western Mail reported sightings of a strange bear-like animal that had been seen across Wales. In the north of the country, a farmer who had spotted the animal on the night of a full moon said he had afterwards found two of his full-grown 70-pound lambs ripped apart. One of the lambs was flattened as if it had been run over by a farm tractor. There were around seventy further sightings between 1992 and 1994, and London Zoo gave the farmers in the area advice for trapping the unknown predator.

Cages baited with steaks and special trapdoors were installed on the farms in the hope that the beast would venture into one of them. The thing did go into one cage, but when the door sprung shut, the animal pulled two steel bars open and escaped. London Zoo said some lunatic must have helped the animal escape, but the farmer said that the animal had pulled the bars apart itself. London Zoo experts said no known animal could have done something like that, even a grisly bear. One pathetic explanation was that a wolverine was on the loose, but the tracks left by the violent animal seem to indicate that it is a large variety of wolf. An American expert on animal tracks said the prints left by the animal strongly resembled fossilised tracks left by the long extinct sabre-toothed tiger. But the sabre-toothed tiger has not roamed Britain since the Pleistocene Era over two million years ago.

From the pattern of sightings made after 1995, it seems that the so-called 'Welsh Werewolf' is steadily moving eastwards towards Cheshire and Merseyside...and maybe to a certain back garden in Manchester!

Hammy x x x

[Cufflink]

From the pattern of sightings made after 1995, it seems that the so-called 'Welsh Werewolf' is steadily moving eastwards towards Cheshire and Merseyside...and maybe to a certain back garden in Manchester!

Hammy x x x

Hang on, what am I laughing for?

What was that noi-

*The rest is silence*

[Engulf]

well hammy,dun quite know about this Wales story but heard that this werewolves do exist somewhere in the Translyvanian area,you know about the infamous Hunadoera's castle?the Castle of Dracula in other words.lots of wierd paranormal activity there.well there's like one hell of a thick forest around the castle and i even saw a tv programme which showed a lady being disfigured by an alledged werewolf.there's really lots of crazy wierd happenings there,gives me the shivers

[dancin'hamster]

Engulf - yes I've heard of Hunadoer Castle...it's where that fluffy sweetheart Vlad The Impaler hung out.

As for were-wolves, I believe they call them 'Strega' (or something like that, and by the way, Strega is a rather nice Italian Liqueur), and I think it's more to do with local superstition than fact.

Hammy x x x

*prods Cuffy to see if he is still alive..........that noise in the garden was only ikkle hedgehogs you wussy*

[Engulf]

As for were-wolves, I believe they call them 'Strega' (or something like that, and by the way, Strega is a rather nice Italian Liqueur), and I think it's more to do with local superstition than fact.

mm,i think it was 'Strigoi'....aiks,really blurred out

anyway,i think it's more to just superstition.......

[dancin'hamster]

"I think it was 'Strigoi'"

LMAO!! I always have trouble with words - sorry! At the garage this morning I asked the mechanic if there was a problem with the 'savaloy' instead of 'solonoid'

curse my blondeness

[VampireResearchSociety]

“Unlike vampirism, werewolfism is not infectious; though in some cases werewolfery has been thought to be hereditary rather than acquired. According to some foklore, the werewolf is liable to become a vampire after expiring and those suspected in past times were always burned after death to prevent them wandering beyond the grave. Notwithstanding this predisposition, according to legend, the werewolf is a living being, not a vampire in wolf form, who either voluntarily or involuntarily changes, or is metamorphosed, into the apparent shape of a wolf; becoming possessed of all the characteristics, ferocity, cunning, strength and swiftness of that animal.”

~ Seán Manchester, The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook (Gothic Press, 1997, page 10)

Link: http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Werewolves.htm

[Blood Angel]

Strega and Stregone are italian and latin names for female witchs (strega) and male witches (stregone). Watch "dog Soldiers" by pathe films for a good old scrap between some squaddies and a bunch of werewolves

[dancin'hamster]

ooooooohhhhhhh ~ I have a story about some soliders in Northern Ireland and some giant wolves........perhaps it's an Urban Legend inspired by this film?

*scampers off to find the story*

Hammy x x x

[order of the pheonix]

Oh, that is so cool!!!!!

I live in Wales.... that is mega cool!!!!!